Revenge of the Fallen
by ChickenOfDoom
Summary: Those who are defeated, do not remain defeated. Not for ever. One day, they are certain to return. And when they do, they are rarely happy. That is one lesson the demigods of the year 2024 learnt the hard way. PLEASE NOTE - Cancelled. Being rewritten as Vengeance of the Ancients.
1. Combat Training

**A/N: Hello everybody and welcome to my new fanfiction! Prepare to be lead along a long and windy trail following the life of the demigod Alexander Llyod, son of Athena. I hope you enjoy reading this fanfic, and I will be open to any feedback, criticism, or advice you give me.**

The two bronze blades were vague blurs as they clashed with each other in a violent flurry of attack and defence. Grunts of exertion and heavy breathing mingled with the clanging of metal as the duel raged on. Sweat fell from the duelist's bodies and dropped down onto the sand beneath them, invisible beneath the cloud of dust kicked up by the fast movement of feet. Occasionally there would be a whooshing sound as one of the combatants ducked or dodged a blow they couldn't or didn't want to block or parry.

An average day at Camp Half Blood, in other words. When some were told that, they assumed either some kind of racist camp, or a training ground for child soldiers. The second was true, in a way. Such things as age don't matter that much to those who are half god and half human, however. Seeing as that was the case for everyone in the Camp, such complaints ceased to matter, and so a huge training battle was raging on, swords and spears clashing with shields and armour.

Of course, half gods didn't limit their methods of combat to swinging sharp bits of metal at each other. One moment a burst of flames scorched the air where a demigod had stood a second before. Shortly after a stunning flash of light temporarily blinded another demigod. The powers wielded by demigods were powerful, but nowhere near half the power of a god; a demigods mortal side was far more prevalent than their godly side.

Not all demigods had such flashy powers, however. A perfect example of that fact is Alexander Lloyd, the son of Athena (goddess of many things, including wisdom, inspiration, the arts, strategy and warfare). He was fighting a son of Ares (greek god of war and violence) who we didn't recognize and he wasn't winning. Whereas Alex was of average height and build, his opponent was a hulking giant who wielded his weapon with extreme skill and finesse.

"I expected a harder fight from you." the son of Ares taunted.

"It's not over yet, brute." Alex replied.

The son of Ares just laughed and raised his sword high over his head. Alex's mind whirred as he tried to work out what was going to happen. Based on the way his opponent was stretching and what he had learned from the fight, he worked out the incoming attack's angle and prepared to counter it. Even the smartest of mortals would have struggled to work out the angle of the blade as precisely as Alex did. The blade arced down towards Alex and he swung his own towards it, catching it just under the handguard and sending it flying from the brute's hand. Alex put the tip of his sword to the child of Ares' neck.

"Then again..." Alex said, "My previous statement is now invalid."

Alex chuckled at his own sentence and headed further up the arena he was in. The sand beneath his feet was warm from the large amount of sunlight shining on it through the open roof of the building. His goal was to reach the top third of the arena. He was in the middle of a combat skill test, where you fought people at the same level as you and headed closer to the north wall if you won, and away from said wall if you lost. Alex was proud to say he was making fast progress upwards, and had just passed the halfway line, putting him above about 45 other demigods - it was a big camp, and a packed arena.

"Alex." called a voice the fourteen year old son of Athena was very used to, "I challenge you."

Alex turned to face his challenger, a fellow demigod he had been friends with since he first started kindergarten. Leah, the daughter of the goddess of force Bia, stood about four meters from him.

"Crap." Alex muttered, then raised his voice to shout: "If you want to move down, feel free."

"You'll be the one going down." Leah taunted.

"Excuse me?" Alex said, arching an eyebrow with a cheeky smile.

"I hate you." Leah replied.

Alex just laughed as Leah approached, sword drawn. Alex held his sword in his right hand and stood his ground. When Leah was roughly two meters away, she sprang through the air, gravity barely affecting her due to her unique demigodly powers. Gravity was a force, and her mother was the goddess of force, after all. Tom dove forward at the last possible moment as Leah slammed back into the ground at an unpredictable angle, her sword carving a furrow into the sand beneath her.

"Too slow, Leah." Alex said, then leapt and thrusted with his sword.

At least, he tried to, but at the last second his personal gravity flipped and he rose ten meters into the air. Then he fell, but at the last second he managed to twist in the air so his trajectory would hurl him into his opponent. Leah was smart enough to know ten meters of momentum could make a demigod a painful thing to collide with, so she had no choice but to slow Alex down to a safe speed. Alex used the time he knew Leah was spending recovering her power to close the distance and attack. Their blades clashed for a few seconds, with Alex striking high then low then left then right over and over again to make it harder for his friend to defend herself.

Just as he was starting to gain an advantage, he was forced to break off from the combat. He knew exactly how long it took Leah to regain her energy, and they had been crossing blades for exactly that long. Alex realized the flaw in his plan almost instantly. Breaking off from the fight really didn't help him evade Leah's unique and incredibly potent powers. Alex did the first thing that came to mind and leapt behind someone approaching the 'skill zone' he was in. He couldn't help but feel sorry for that person when their acceleration reversed and sent them flying across the arena. Alex knew if that power hadn't been blocked by his unwilling ally he would have been shot into the arena wall and knocked unconscious.

Alex tried to gauge how much power Leah had left, and wether or not he could attack without being far more vulnerable to her powers. He did some mental calculations and charged. His mass increased as he did so and he struggled to keep his speed up. Leah quickly advanced and went for a stab. Alex tried to dodge but couldn't due to his extra weight, and the sword tip stopped a centimeter from his throat.

"Well, Hades." Alex cursed.

Leah smiled and waved goodbye in a taunting way as Alex turned to trudge back down to the previous 'skill zone'.

* * *

Alex didn't quite reach his target. The first time he got close, his older brother Martin kicked him back down by using a spear to keep Alex at a distance. The second time he was defeated in a sword battle by Lucas, a son of Melinoe, goddess of ghosts. Alex had been on the cusp of victory when the little trickster turned into a ghost for a few seconds and floated straight through him in a perfect flanking maneuver.

One of Alex's flaws was the way he would get depressed when he failed, resulting in him failing even more and falling into a circle of failure until he snapped out of it, which could take an incredibly long time. That flaw didn't exactly help him fight his way back towards the top. In fact, in made it far, far harder.

Alex headed to the dining pavilion. The long day of combat testing had worn him down, and his stomach was rumbling like the San Andreas fault line. That, and it was sausage and mash night, and Alex loved sausage and mash. Or, as his father called it, "Bangers and Mash".

The older Lloyd was born in England, and embraced all the sterotypes with glee. Sometimes, Alex found it funny, but at others it was just plain annoying. With "Bangers and Mash" it had been funny until Alex and his friends had reached the age where it started to sound dirty to them.

Alex devoured his food hungrily once he reached the pavilion and made the mandatory sacrifice of a sausage to his godly parent. Mashed potatoes, sausages, peas and carrots were on a gravy covered plate one minute, and halfway through the demigod's digestive system the next. Alex loved his food.

After dinner, Alex wasn't feeling very sleepy, so instead of heading back to the Athena cabin where he and his siblings slept, he walked out into the woods surrounding the camp and made his way to a collection of boulder named 'Zeus' Fist'. When Alex had first been told of it's existence, he had pictured a cluster of boulders, some atop others, jutting up from the ground in a powerful way. What he later learnt was that it was more like a turd make of rocks from most angles. Unfortunately, Chiron, the camp's Centaur activities director, wouldn't let the demigods call it 'Poop Pile'.

Alex climbed on top of one of the boulders, then jumped and pulled himself up onto another, higher one. He sat there for a few minutes, staring into the distance and daydreaming. His thoughts eventually turned to why he hadn't reached his target. He thought for a while, and realized that while he was a good fighter and great at using his brains to figure out what moves to use, he wasn't stopping to consider his opponent's demigodly powers, and that he needed to focus more on-

"Boo." said Leah from behind him.

Alex was so absorbed in his thoughts that he was startled to the point where he fell off of the boulder. When he was about halfway down, he stopped falling and started floating upwards. As he floated back past the boulder he had been sitting on, Leah's hand grabbed his and pulled him back onto the boulder. Alex steadied himself on the boulder as his gravity returned to normal.

"I'm not sure if I should thank you or be angry at you." Alex said.

"Hey, I just saved your life." Leah said.

"You endangered it in the first place." Alex shot back.

"You're the one who forgot to pay attention to your surroundings." Leah replied.

"Why were you even here anyway?" Alex asked, having not expected to _need_ to be aware of what was going on around him.

"I wasn't tired." Leah replied.

"Same." Alex said.

There was silence for a few moments.

"So, um, how was your day?" Alex asked to break the silence.

"Good. The best part was when I kicked your ass." Leah smirked.

"You cheated." Alex mumbled.

"Hey, they never said no using powers." Leah replied.

"It was just assumed everyone was intelligent enough to realize that you weren't meant to. But clearly not." Alex said.

"I hate you." Leah replied.

"You love me really." Alex said.

"Don't think that will save you in capture the flag on saturday." Leah said, shifting the conversation.

"You're siding with the dumb brutes then?" Alex teased, referencing the Ares cabin in a less than loving way.

"Maybe, maybe not." Leah replied.

"The suspense is killing me." Alex joked.

The pair talked for a while longer, but eventually they got tired and the conversation got slow. After a little over fifteen minutes the two went back to their separate cabins to sleep.

Alex slipped into the Athena cabin as close to silently as he could managing, not wanting to disturb his half siblings. He slipped into the changing rooms and opened his personal cupboard. He took out his pyjamas and slipped into them. He dumped his orange camp-half blood t-shirt and jeans in the bottom of his cupboard and closed the door.

A few minutes later he was lying asleep in his bunkbed.

**A/N: Thanks for reading everyone! I hope you enjoyed. Please leave a review, it'll make the story better, and also make my day. **


	2. A Day at Camp

**A/N: Sorry if this chapter seems a bit slow, but I wanted to get it out there to show Alex's strengths and weaknesses (the ones that can easily be seen, anyway). I also tried to add a little bit of random stuff to Alex like him not being a morning person and loving bacon. Along with that I added another two semi-major characters, and referenced two more. I also took a shot at **

Alex wasn't very good at getting up in the mornings. When he slept, he slept very deeply and subconsciously got into such a comfortable position that waking up was a momentous task to him. That is why on Thursday morning, the day after the giant combat training session, he took a full 10 minutes to get out of bed after he was woken up. His half-sibling Tammy woke him up 10 minutes early for that exact reason.

"Muhrnin." Alex mumbled when he was woken up, being too sleepy to form proper words.

"Morning." Tammy replied, deftly hopping down from Alex's bunk.

Although he stalwartly refused to admit it, Tammy was Alex's favourite half sibling. She was energetic, kind and amusing, whereas most children of Athena were fairly serious and calculating.

A short while later Tammy started to wake up the other demigod children of Athena and Alex took it as his signal to get out of bed. He clambered down the ladder from his bunk and headed into the changing rooms. The young demigod collected his clothes from the bottom of his personal cupboard and got dressed.

As soon as everyone was dressed, they all headed for the dining pavilion. The meal that morning was bacon sandwiches and egg. Alex didn't like eggs, so he took an extra bacon sandwich instead of a second egg, and scraped his first egg into the sacrificial fire. He mentally congratulated himself before he realized how simple of a solution the one he just took had been.

Alex loved bacon sandwiches, mostly. However, he hated the fatty white meat on the outside of each slice. He peeled as much of that as he could off before putting the bacon back inside the bread and starting to eat.

Breakfast was uneventful, and so was the morning session of ancient greek. Canoeing after that was a complete disaster, but then again, with children of Athena it always was, due to the rivalry between Athena and Poseidon. The day remained uninteresting through the session in the archery range, too. That is, until the guns were brought out.

"Time to train with rifles." Martin, an older half brother of Alex, said.

"Yay! I love rifles, they're so much more fun than bows, because bows are slow whereas rifles are more bangbangbangbangbang!" Tammy laughed, and Alex realized just how much of a rifle fan his half sibling was.

The rifle cabinet was unlocked, and everyone selected their firearm. Alex went for an old but cheap M16A1 assault rifle, and loaded it with a clip of average, mortal bullets. Celestial Bronze bullets were too expensive for training use. Tammy chose the fastest firing weapon in the armoury, a brand new and incredibly well maintained M8 rifle that straddled the line between assault rifle and light machine gun. Alex grabbed some ear protectors as soon as he saw Tammy click her weapon into fully automatic, then crouched down on one knee at the end of the range.

He started with single shots, getting used to the feel of the weapon and the recoil, then flipped the rifle into fully automatic. He fired short bursts at the target, picturing it being first a dracanae, then a minotaur, then a telkhine. After three spent clips, he decided to look over at Tammy's target. It had been ripped through in spots too numerous to count, and was barely standing up. To be honest, it was in far better condition than Alex had expected. After Alex fired another three magazines' worth of bullets, however, Tammy had needed to bring in a new target.

Half an hour later, the competition began. Whoever got the most bullseyes in 30 seconds would win. Tammy tried to achieve that by spraying and hoping to hit the bullseye. Alex went for short bursts aimed at the dead center of the target, firing enough to get plenty of bullseyes but slowly enough to be accurate. In the end Reggie, the oldest demigod in the cabin, won. He had been firing single shots incredibly quickly, somehow not losing any of his pinpoint accuracy.

After the shooting session it was lunchtime. Alex wasn't very hungry, and didn't really enjoy the toasted cheese and sun dried tomato sandwiches, so he was glad when the conch horn for the end of lunch blew. His cabin's schedule for the day was very packed, so it was straight back to activities for the young demigod.

Five hours of climbing rock walls, training with the sword and trying (and failing miserably) to make a shield followed. Alex almost got incinerated by a burst of lava and was inches from having his foot crushed by the time the rock climbing was over, which put him in a bad mood for his sword training. He didn't learn any new moves, and barely got any more skilled at using the ones he knew. The shield he tried to make ended up looking like it had been hit by a series of meteors, then bent even more out of shape by an angry god. Smithing was not Alex's best skill, in fact, it was far closer to being his worst.

"That is the worst shield I have ever seen." Tammy had laughed.

"Does it really count as a shield?" Alex had replied.

"Probably not." Tammy had said with a grin.

Dinner was far earlier than it had been the previous day. It was a six thirty; On Wednesday, it had been at nine thirty. Combat training had pushed dinner back very far. Alex scoffed down his lasagna after making the mandatory sacrifice, then dug into a bowl of mint chocolate chip ice cream. He leaned back and let out a satisfied 'aah' once he was done eating.

After dinner all of the campers had some free time up until eleven, when the harpies came out. Rumour had it the harpies would eat campers breaking curfew, but Alex doubted that. It was far more likely they just chased them back into their cabins, or knocked them out and dragged them there. For some reason, no one had decided to try it out. Alex was sorely tempted to do so for a few moments, but then opted against it. Better safe than sorry, as his dad said.

That chain of thought is the one that lead Alex towards the newly built camp computer suite. The thought of his dad had made him want to talk to him, and phones were dangerous for demigods to use, so email was the only way he could do so. He made his way through the neat rows of computers and sat down at one towards the back of the room. He pressed the on button and waited for Microsoft Windows to start up.

'Thirty nine years worth of development and it still takes forever to start up.' he grumbled mentally.

Alex's dad used Apple Mac, because in his youth he had gotten so frustrated with windows long start up time, random restarts, and vulnerability to viruses. Alex had was unsure as to why Camp Half Blood used Windows, but suspected it was down to either pricing or Dionysus, the camp's godly leader, torturing the unsuspecting demigods.

The computer finally started up and Alex's fingers became a blur as he typed in his username and password. He sat through the long log on screen, then waited as it loaded personalized settings for programs he had never heard of. Windows had barely changed since Alex was born in 2010, if what his dad said was true.

At long last, Alex's home screen burst into life on the screen and he clicked the icon for _Wave_, the default browser on the Camp Half Blood computers. He clicked into the searchbar and-

"Byarrgh!" someone behind him shouted, grabbing his shoulders.

Unlike the last time he had been startled from behind, Alex managed to avoid a fall.

"Hello Kyle." Alex said calmly.

Kyle had a very immature habit of trying to startle Alex while he was using computers, and he had gotten very used to it, to the point where it only just made him blink, much to Kyle's displeasure.

"What are you doing?" Kyle asked.

"Using the computer." Alex replied sarcastically.

"Alex." Kyle said menacingly.

"Using the internet." Alex teased.

"What are you doing on the internet?" Kyle asked.

"Not much. Just started it up." Alex replied, spinning the chair around to face Kyle.

Kyle was a bit taller than Alex, standing at about five foot ten, whereas Alex was only five foot nine. Kyle's light blonde, almost white hair was nearly the exact opposite of Alex's pitch black hair. Kyle's eyes were of different colour, one green, one blue, which Alex saw as an outward sign of his friend's insanity. The son of Athena's eyes were far less interesting, just the grey that children of Athena were easily identifiable by.

"I overtook you at _Quest of Zeus_." Kyle said.

"That weird puzzle game?" Alex checked.

"Yes." Kyle confirmed.

Alex opened his favourites menu and clicked the link to Quest of Zeus. He enjoyed the game as much for it's amusingly terrible portrayal of the gods as he did for it's gameplay. The game loaded and a greek hero rendered in the blacks and oranges of ancient greek pottery ran into a room with a giant hole in the floor.

"I beat this bit and the next three puzzles." Kyle said.

Alex just smiled. For a supernaturally intelligent partially immortal fourteen year old like him, four puzzles was _nothing_. He called lightning from above to turn a column into a bridge, put a drakon to sleep with magic apples, found a mirror and held it up to medusa, turning her to stone - "That is completely wrong." he had said - and found the correct path through a magical minefield. Then he had beaten Kyle by using a red flag to lure the minotaur over a cliff.

"That is so untrue." Kyle said.

"You can't expect mortals to get everything right." Alex replied smugly, "Me, on the other hand, you can rely on to get things right."

Kyle logged on to the computer next to Alex and they competed to beat the game first. Alex won while Kyle was still forty percent from the end of the game. While Kyle was engrossed in the game Alex typed in 'astroboy' to the searchbar. The first image that came up was a stupid manga toddler in a diaper and rocket boots flying through space.

"Hey, Kyle." Alex said, "You're on the internet."

Kyle looked over.

"Shut up Alex." he said angrily.

To outsiders, the whole joke would have made no sense. But to demigods, it made perfect sense. Kyle was the son of Urania, the muse of astronomy and astrology. Astroboy was Alex's taunt name for him, or 'pet name' if he was using it endearingly. But mostly, it was a taunt name.

After playing through a few levels of an interesting but painfully outdated 2012 flash game called 'Jacksmith' Alex noticed the time was 9:53. The computer suite closed at 10 PM. He quickly sent an email to his dad and logged off. He wished Kyle goodbye and headed back to the Athena cabin to get some sleep.

**A/N: Yes, the muses can have demigod children. Resurrect Homer and ask him. Or just, you know, read The Illiad. Or google it. But before you do, please leave a review. Thanks in advance, you beautiful person.**


	3. Capture the Flag

**A/N: I present you my best chapter yet, in my opinion. The Capture the Flag match mentioned in chapter one is the topic of this chapter, and it's action packed and hopefully fun to read. I hope you enjoy reading this as much as I enjoyed writing it.**

The moon was a beautiful glowing orb in the dark night sky, and the stars were shining brightly, their positions creating images of the greek heroes of old and a more recent heroine, the Huntress. Alex loved the night sky, and the enthralling beauty in held. When he didn't have places to be the next day, he would often stay up with a friend or two until the early hours of the morning watching the stars, talking and drinking hot chocolate. That was how he first met his good friend Kyle. However, the stars also frustrated the young demigod. Science was constantly contradicting and being contradicted by the gods, and it made gaining knowledge, a passion of all children of Athena, incredibly difficult.

Alex frowned at where his chain of thought had took him and double checked the straps on his personal celestial bronze plated chestplate. It was a beautiful custom made piece of armour, with golden trim and an owl carved into the center. The whole thing had been made incredibly resistant to monster attacks by the celestial bronze plating. His friend Garrick from the Hephaestus cabin had created it for him for his fourteenth birthday. His helmet was far less interesting, being a slightly too large standard issue bronze helmet. The same applied to his training short sword, or, more accurately, xiphos. A navy blue cape hung from his shoulders. He had all of the equipment for the purpose of the capture the flag match about to start.

"Ready?" asked Garrick in his deep, rumbling voice.

Alex looked at his incredibly tall and muscular friend. He was clad in heavy armour and wielding a long spear with a spike at the rear of the sharp and a razor sharp spearhead on the other end.

"Yeah. You?" Alex asked.

"I was born ready." Garrick replied.

The Capture the Flag match was between two teams, lead by the Athena and Ares cabins, as usual. War deities tended to have children who are skilled commanders. With Alex's cabin was a huge array of cabins, the most important being the Hephaestus, Apollo, Demeter, Dionysus, and Hecate cabins. The plan was to use the Hephaestus and Apollo cabins strenngth and archery respectively to form a strong fighting force, and the other three important cabins to use powers and spells to grow natural defences and hinderances. All under the tactically brilliant Athena cabin demigods' lead.

Alex and Tammy were in joint command of a squad of 12, including the two children of Athena, three campers from both the Hephaestus and Apollo cabins, three children of Demeter, and Leah, daughter of Bia. The squad's objective was to use Leah's control of momentum and the Demter children's ability to make animate vines to pull the enemy flag's guards into the forest, where they would be surrounded and hopefully easily defeated.

"All plans break at first contact with the enemy." Alex murmured to himself.

"What was that?" Leah asked, having just walked over.

"Nothing important." Alex replied.

"Then there's nothing stopping you telling me, right?" Leah asked.

Leah knew Alex incredibly well, and, unfortunately for the son of Athena, one of the things she knew best about him was how to get what she wanted from him.

"True. It was just a pessimistic quote." Alex said.

"Relax. You have me on the team." Leah joked.

"Yeah." Alex said, then, after a slight delay, "I'm glad you chose the Athena team."

"It was having to work with the brutes or having to work with you, so it was a hard choice." Leah teased.

"How dare you say that, you window frame." Alex laughed.

When the two demigods had been in their second year of school, Leah had blurted out the most amusingly terrible insult Alex had ever heard: "You window frame." Since then, it had become an in joke between the two best friends.

"Window frame?" Garrick said with a raised eyebrow.

"It's a long story." Leah lied.

"Nah, it's just an example of Leah's terrible insulting skills." Alex teased.

"Meanie." Leah said, giving Alex a playful shove.

The conversation was brought to an end by the call of a horn signalling the start of the Capture the Flag match. Alex took lead of the team instantly, waving for them to follow him as he jogged forwards into the forest ahead of him, his heart thumping repetitively and quickly in his chest. He lead the way into the forest as far as Zeus' Fist, and then allowed Tammy to take the lead, as she knew the area from that point on far better than he did. His half sister lead the way through the sprawling forest expertly, winding through the towering trees, ducking protruding branches and leaping over long, gnarled roots as she did so, with athletic skill Alex could only dream of.

After roughly five minutes of jogging through the trees, Tammy crouched down and held her hand up to signal for everyone to stop. Alex skidded to a halt, leaving two faint skid marks in the mud beneath his feet. Alex huddled down low as he made his way over to where Tammy was kneeling. As he approached her, he saw a group of roughly fifteen armoured demigods wearing the red cloaks of the opposing team. Alex forced himself down even lower as he stopped a dozen centimeters from Tammy.

"You're a better tactician than I am, what do you think we should do about them bad guys?" Tammy whispered.

Alex scanned the terrain. A tall oak tree dominated the land to the far north-east, and the far north-east was merely plain forest. As the land got closer it raised up to form two ridges, with a pass between them about eight meters long. His and Tammy's squad were at the start of the pass.

"I've got an idea." Alex replied.

* * *

The group from the Ares cabin lead team entered the pass between the two ridges. Small patches of bracken tugged at their shoes as they made their way forward. Once they were about halfway through the pass, all Hades broke loose.

Alex and Tammy's squad leaped majestically from the ridges, the four meter fall made nothing to the demigods by Leah's control of gravity. Alex landed in front of a thin, wiry kid, kicking up a dust cloud as he did so. He felt a bit cruel as he slashed the kid's forehead, giving him a large dosage of the knockout poison applied to all of the Camp Half Blood training swords. The kid fell to the ground in a heap; his sword rattled at Alex's feet before losing it's momentum and becoming silent.

Alex paused for a moment and in that split second delay Dylan, son of Cratos, god of strength and power, leapt him. Dylan's hammer arced through the cool night air, glinting it the moonlight. The blow carries enough power to knock even a Minotaur out cold. Alex's mind kicked into overdrive, calculating the angle of the hammer and the speed it was moving at in milliseconds. Then he moved, dodging the hammer and ending up in perfect position to knock it from Dylan's hands. He did so, bringing his sword down on the hammerhead and wrenching it from the son of Cratos' grip.

Alex pressed his advantage and pressed the blunt tip of his sword into Dylan's muscular but unprotected leg hard enough to draw blood. The poison on the blade flooded into the loser's bloodstream through the wound. Dylan went limp; the duel was over. Around Alex, the rest of the battle was also ending. Tammy tripped and stabbed an opponent; Leah conserved her energy and instead of using her powers she sliced her blade through an enemy's armour and a thin layer of skin; Garrick stabbed one enemy, then thrusted his spear back into one who was trying to run.

The runner scrambled back to his feet after a few seconds, an tried to run again. Tammy rugby tackled him and then got up, pinning the runner to the ground with her right foot. The runner squirmed in the mud, trying to get up, but not finding success. He was no closer to standing than the rest of his group or the two Demeter kids who had been knocked out in the battle. On his face a picture of confusion and fear was printed. Alex was fairly sure he knew what the runner was thinking:

'Oh gods, what are they going to do to me? Why didn't they just let me run?'

'Because you have information.' Alex answered mentally, feeling a little strange as he did so; answering imagined questions wasn't exactly normal.

Before Alex started worrying about his mental state, Tammy began to interrogate the runner.

"Where is your flag?" she asked, speaking quickly and menacingly.

"On top of Hermes Hill." the runner replied, fear oozing out of his body through his voice.

"Thanks." Tammy said, before pressing the poisoned tip of her blade to a cut on the runner's leg.

The party placed a time delayed flare to signal a medic amongst the unconscious bodies and then set off for Hermes Hill. At least, Alex assumed Tammy was leading them to Hermes Hill; He didn't know the forest very well. Thankfully, Tammy did, and she expertly lead the squad of ten through the woods. Eventually she slowed down, dropped to a crawl, and made her way to the edge of a clearing. Alex followed her there and, sure enough, a large hill was there, with the opponent's flag atop it. Twelve guards were patrolling the hill, carefully weaving their way around traps and pits dug into the ground to aid with defence.

"Do you have a plan, Alex, or are we going to try to go with the original one, event though we're missing some of the Demeter kids who were part of the plan, which might make it harder, sorry, I'll let you speak now." Tammy whispered.

"No need to apologize. I think we just need to rely on Leah to hurl them into a forest, and have the Demeter kid-" Alex said, feeling guilty at not knowing his fellow demigod's name, "hinder them in combat. Oh, and leave that one-" Alex pointed at a tough, agile and cunning demigod called Aaron, "to me."

Tammy agreed to the plan and the two outlined it to the squad. They all got ready, and Leah vanished into the trees, sneaking around Hermes Hill. A minute later, she sprinted up Hermes Hill from the other side, and thrusted her palms out towards the enemy guards. Using the force of thrust, she hurled them off of the hill and sent them tumbling into the forest. One hit a tree and was knocked out, a trail of blood leaking from their shoulder back where they hit the tree.

Alex dove straight into battle, charging at Aaron. He and Aaron were constantly competing. Alex had intended the competition to be friendly, but Aaron had turned it nasty. Aaron was a son of Zelus, god of dedication, envy, jealousy, zeal, and, most importantly, eager rivalry, so the rivalry turning nasty was no surprise.

These thoughts flowed through Alex's head as he pounced at Aaron and stabbed forwards with his sword. Aaron saw him coming and blocked the blow. He pushed Alex's sword aside and swiped. Alex ducked and stabbed. Aaron twisted out of the way and lunged. Alex parried the blow and went for a kick. Aaron caught his leg and swung him around, then hurled him away. Alex scrambled to his feet and charged in. Aaron sidestepped and launched an overhead blow. Alex dodged and then knocked Aaron's sword to the ground. Aaron left hooked Alex before he could press the advantage. Then he was lifted into the air by Leah.

"Leave this to me, Leah!" Alex shouted.

Leah did so, lowering Aaron to the ground. He instantly charged Alex and attacked. Alex created a defensive wall until the control of combat turned to him, then he unleashed a flurry of blows designed to strike as far as possible from the previous spot, to keep the enemy struggling to defend. Aaron's blocks and parries begun to slow down, and Alex forced a final surge of energy out of him. He broke through Aaron's defence and gave his rival a gash along the cheek, then a cut all running vertically down his chest. Aaron stumbled and then fell unconscious.

There was a loud cheer from the rest of the party as Aaron fell, leaving the flag unguarded. While Alex had been focusing on his personal duel the rest of the group had fought their own battles and defeated all of the guards. Leah changed the flag's thrust and it flew into her hand. Her long, feminine fingers wrapped around the metal pole and she sprinted off towards the creek; Cross the creek with the enemy flag and you win the game.

Alex and Garrick sprinted after her, so they could fight off anyone who tried to stop her. After the first few minutes of running Leah's powers were restored and she used them to increase the trio's speed as they drew closer to the creek. When they first saw the creek, they were about a minute's sprint away. An opponent had the Athena cabin led team's flag and was about twenty seconds away.

"Alex, stop the flag carrier!" Leah shouted.

Alex suddenly increased in speed, putting him about fifteen seconds from the creek. He heard the other two slow down behind him, and poured every last drop of energy into his sprint. The enemy flag carrier was ten seconds from the creek. Seven seconds. Five seconds. Three seconds.

Alex reached the creek and leapt. His sword flashed in the moonlight and carved a neat red line along the flag carrier's forehead. Alex tumbled across the ground, then got up just in time to witness Leah and Garrick crossing the creek with the flag. Everyone close enough to see erupted into either cheers or boos as enchanted fireworks shot into the sky and detonated to from the symbol of the Ares cabin (a boar) being replaced by the symbol of the Athena cabin (an owl). In the past it would become the symbol of the flag carrier's cabin, but it had recently changed to the leading cabin's symbol.

* * *

After almost every capture the flag match, Alex would dream of being a central part to his team's victory. He would dream of a flag race to the creek, of it being really tense and close.

_That night, his dream started the usual way. It went as usual the flags were nearing the creek. Then a shaft of light broke out from under the creek, then another, then dozens more until a majestic yet frightening glow emanated from beneath the water. Then the light became a magic explosion, and chunks of superheated rock flew in every direction, and a mysterious figure emerged from beneath the earth. The air became clearer, but somehow sharper and more powerful. Thunder crackled in the sky, with lances of lighting shooting in every direction. Strong winds whipped around the area, cracking trees ad hurling them great distances. Tornadoes began tearing up the land in the far distance. Clouds of every tone and shape faded in and out of the sky, which was cycling from day to night to dusk to dawn at an accelerated rate. The figure glowed gold, and then was gone, and the sky returned to normal._

__Alex awoke at three in the morning, drenched in sweat.

**A/N: I've really enjoyed writing this chapter. I tried to combine imagery, character development, backstory, action, tension and comedy into one epic chapter while fleshing out Alex's inventory. Oh, and starting to work in the main plot. I hope I did well, but if I didn't you know what to do: _Review._ Pretty please?**


	4. Nightmare's Aftermath

**A/N: I think I'm talking to myself in these author's notes. It's clear no one actually reads this story, so I am literally talking to myself. Well, typing to myself, but whatever.**

Alex didn't have much of an appetite that morning, because he was preoccupied thinking about the nightmare. Throughout his sessions that morning, Alex was trying to figure out who the figure had been. Every time he felt like he was getting close, he felt like he was freezing to death and heart rate increased to dangerous levels. The reaction didn't feel natural to him. It felt more like something from outside was invading his mind.

After several dozen attempts at identifying the figure from his night, Alex just gave up and turned his full attention towards his morning sessions. He got to the top of the climbing wall just fine; managed to not come dead last in the footracing contest like he usually did; did okay at ancient greek to english translations; so he figured he was doing a pretty good job.

When it came to lunchtime he was kind of hungry from skipping, and he had locked the unnatural nightmare into the back of his mind, so he not only ate all of his spaghetti bolognese, but had seconds too. After he was done eating he set out to find Leah. It didn't take him long, mostly because she was looking for him too. They saw each other at the same time and called out each others names at the same time.

"Jinx." Leah said with a laugh.

"Damn it." Alex replied.

Leah punched him jokingly in the arm, the penalty for breaking the jinx.

Kyle walked over; greeted the other two demigods; asked what they were talking about.

"I was just about to tell Leah about this demigod dream I had." Alex answered, using the unofficial name for a prophetic dream exclusive for demigods.

"Huh. I was about to tell Alex about a demigod dream _I_ had." Leah said.

"How odd. I came over to tell you two about a demigo-" Kyle started.

"Kyle, you're killing it." Alex replied.

"But I did. Somebody floated up from a river and there was a bunch of storms." Kyle said.

"Leah, is that the dream you had?" Alex asked.

"Yeah." Leah replied.

"Then we all had that dream." Alex said, "Three of us."

"That's a strange coincidence." Kyle said, earning a facepalm from Alex.

"It's no coincidence, Kyle." Leah said, "We've got a mystery to solve."

"Maybe we could see if anyone in the Hypnos and Morpheus cabin can help?" Alex said after a few moments of thinking.

The two made their way through the cabins until the reached the Hypnos and Morpheus cabin. The two were grouped due to their similar aspects. Hypnos was the god of sleep, Morpheus was the god of dreams, and as such both of their children spent most of their time sleeping. However, when awake, children of Morpheus were masters of the mysteries of dreams and memory. Children of Hypnos were just sleepy when awake, a far less useful divine power. Alex's theory was that one of them could bring up an image of the dream, and together the trio could identify the figure, without the unholy power interrupting their efforts.

The two reached the door to the cabin and Alex stepped forward. He knocked three times with his right fist, then waited for a moment. Someone inside the cabin mumbled something sounding like 'come in', so he pushed the door open and led his two friends in. Inside was a half dozen comfortable looking beds stacked with layers of covers, pillows and teddy bears. Three of them had sleeping demigods in, all of them chubby and fast asleep. One of them had a tired looking demigod sitting up in it. The awake demigod was called Jake, and he was tall and thin, almost the polar opposite of his half-siblings.

"Let me guess?" Jake said wearily, "You're here about the nightmare."

"Is there anyone in camp who didn't have the nightmare?" Alex asked, mostly to himself.

"Us four are the only ones who had it." Jake said, "My oh so mighty powers told me that."

Alex listened intently.

"I've done some thinking and used my powers. Skipped sleep to do it." Jake continued, "The figure is older than the gods. Mightier, too, from what I could tell."

Thunder rumbled in the sky like a hungry beast's stomach.

"Yeah, whatever. The figure has some kind of control over either weather, sky, storms, elements, drama, whatever." Jake continued.

Alex was rapidly starting to admire the son of Morpheus.

"Nothing else that can be found with the magic or whatever protecting the nightmare from searching." Jake concluded.

"What if you were to project it onto an IM?" Alex asked.

"Tried that." Jake sighed, "The magic stops me doing it."

"Well there goes my theory." Alex muttered.

"I think we need a quest." Leah said, "It's kind of obvious that we do, actually."

"Quests are always for three people. You three go, I'll stay here." Jake said.

"All of us got the nightmare, all of us should go." Leah argued.

"I'll do research for you instead, contact you through IMs." Jake reasoned, "It's not like I'm any good in the field anyway."

"Four are better than three." Kyle argued.

"True, but three with someone to help through research are better." Jake said, crossing his arms.

"Jake is right, guys. He can give us recon, locations, information, whatever we need." Alex said.

"We might not even get a quest." Kyle said.

"And the sky isn't blue." Leah said sarcastically.

"Technically, the sky isn't actually bl-" Alex started.

"Not helping, Alex." Leah interrupted.

After a few more minutes of arguing, it was agreed that if a quest was given Alex, Kyle and Leah would go while Jake provided support through IMs. Unfortunately (or perhaps fortunately) Chiron, the only being in Camp Half Blood able to give out quests, wasn't in camp that day, so no quest was given out that day. The rest of the day was fairly uneventful, and Alex went to sleep easily. His sleep was without dreams or nightmares. Alex was thankful for that the next morning.

**A/N: Meh. Short chapter. Plot stuff. Please review, imaginary readers!**


	5. The Quest is Given

**A/N: Thank you to the kind person who left a review and made my day. Onto the next chapter, a seething mass of plot:**

The next morning Alex was woken early, which he wasn't exactly a huge fan of. After a few minutes of being too tired to bother doing anything, he rubbed his eyes and glanced at the clock hanging on the wall beside his bed. It was an analog clock, because digital clocks messed with his demigod dyslexia. Especially in the dark, when seen by eyes still clogged up by the remains of sleep. It was six nineteen in the morning.

"Alex? Are you awake?" a voice whispered.

"No, I'm fucking sleeping while sitting up and checking the gods damned time," Alex snapped.

There was a few moments of silence.

"Who are you and what do you want?" Alex said.

"It's Leah. We've got a quest," the person who had woken Alex said.

"Why did we get a quest at six fifteen in the bloody morning?" Alex asked.

"Jake went to see Chiron early in the morning, and I woke up, heard, and got the prophecy," Leah said.

"And you decide it was a good idea to tell me so early because?" Alex asked.

"Um... Good question, Leah said.

Alex sighed and dropped down from his bunkbed. At least, he tried to. He ended up suspended about a foot in the air.

"Very funny," Alex sighed.

"Someone's in a mood," Leah said, letting Alex land.

"If you were woken up at six fifteen in the morning, you'd be in a mood," Alex said.

"I was woken up even earlier than that," Leah replied.

"You and your gods damned logics," Alex said, feeling the angry fire in his brain fade.

Within a few minutes the two had woken up Kyle and the three met up with Jake in the Hypnos and Morpheus cabin. The four talked for almost an hour, planning out what equipment they would need, what threats they would need to expect, and many other fine details relating to the quest. Then the main problem came up:

"Where are we gonna go?" Kyle asked.

There was a good three seconds of silence.

"That... Is a good question," Alex said.

"You idiot," Kyle said.

"You didn't exactly do anything either, Kyle," Alex replied.

"I may have a solution, if you two stop bickering anytime this year," Jake said.

All heads turned to face him.

"The dream came from somewhere, somewhere not inside any of the hundred billion neurons in each of our brains," Jake continued, "Maybe I can find out where."

"Go for it," Alex siad.

There was a minute of silence while Jake sat completely still, his eyes closed and the lids glowing slightly. After that minute, Jake opened his eyes.

"From what I can tell, the dream was transmitted from the west. Far to the west," Jake explained.

"So we just go west until we find something?" Alex asked, "Not the best plan ever..."

"I can pinpoint it better. But it'll take time," Jake said, "Over that time, you three can get close by going west."

"What if we go too far?" Kyle asked.

"We turn around." Alex said sarcastically.

A brief conversation wrap up followed, and the group prepared to set out.

* * *

Alex went through his kit list one last time:

-Celestial Bronze Sword

-Mortal Handgun, with 3 clips of ammo

-4 sets of clothes

-Waterproof clothing

-Ambrosia and Nectar (the food and drink of the gods that could heal demigods, or disintegrate them if too much was consumed)

-10 military style MREs

-A portable cooker designed for the SAS and flammable hexamine tablets

-A mess tin

-2 vacuum flasks

-2 sets of cutlery

-25 drachmas (godly and demigodly currency)

-Watertight bag of 200 dollars

-Lead lined mini suitcase, for usage in metal detector heavy areas

In short, Alex had enough gear to survive in the wild as effectively as a Special Forces team when combined with his demigod abilities, while also having the gear needed to go unnoticed in public. It was a robust set of kit that could be stored in a backpack with a little cramming and liberal usage of side pockets and netting on the outside of the bag.

"Everyone ready?" Kyle asked as the three demigods stood by the can that would take them into New York.

"Nope." Alex and Leah said simultaneously, climbing into the van.

Alex's stomach fluttered, rumbled and churned with a conflicting mess of emotions as the quest began.

**A/N: Sorry for the short chapter, but I ran into some writer's block.**


	6. Chaos on the streets

**A/N: To apologize for the plot heavy, short previous chapter, I wrote the longest chapter yet. It features action, stealth, new powers, character development, and a nice bundle of mystery linked to the plot. Enjoy!**

Mere hours later, the three demigods were wandering through the back alleys of New York, NY. Dirt and litter spilled from the overused bins, and poorly maintained lights struggled to illuminate the narrow, long alleyways, especially as the sun began to sink. The smell was terrible, and the sound of small animals skittering about could be heard just as well as the engines of cars in the streets.

"I told you the bus station was to the right!" Kyle complained.

"Your face was to the right," Alex retorted.

"That makes absolutely no sense," Kyle said.

"You face makes absol-" Alex started.

"You're both wrong, it was to the left," Leah cut in.

"There was a dead end to the left," Alex said.

"So?" Leah asked.

"Some of us can't control gravity," Alex said.

"I could have got you two over," Leah protested.

"Kyle's scared of heights," Alex bluffed, trying to make himself seem less idiotic.

"Shut up Alex, I'm a demigod of space, and space is as high as you can get," Kyle said.

"Demigod of stars," Alex said.

"What's the difference?" Kyle asked.

"Well, space is an empty void containing no particles, whereas stars are fission powered balls of fiery gas," Alex said.

"He said space, not a vacuum," Leah said.

"Whose side are you on?" Alex complained.

"Not yours," Leah laughed.

"Great. Love you too," Alex said, his tongue dripping with sarcasm.

The trio continued to argue, banter and be lost for almost fifteen minutes. They were interrupted by a cry of:

"Die, heathen!"

Alex span around to see a young adult with a brown hoodie charge him from the shadows. He had a gnarled wooden club in his hand, complete with sharp and thick metal nails. Alex ducked the first swipe and the club sailed through the air above him. The hooded attacker swore and readied for another blow, but the gravity around him reversed and he shot into the air.

Leah didn't bother letting him land safely. Alex felt sorry for both the hoodie thug and anyone near where he landed.

Dozens more hooded figures poured from the shadows, unfazed by Leah's manipulation of the way the universe worked. Some wielded spiked wooden clubs; some long, sharp knives; two even had celestial bronze swords. Alex tried to work out if they were demigods or monsters, but they didn't give him a chance.

One charged Alex, who sidestepped and drew his sword. He turned and swung at the one who had charged him, but the blade passed harmlessly through him. Alex was startled: they had celestial bronze weapons but were mortal? He recovered from his shock and kicked the mortal into a wall.

One of the two celestial bronze sword wielders thrusted at Alex, who parried and swung a fast but weak blow at his attacker's arm. The attacker cursed as Alex's sword drew blood. Alex realized he was fighting a mixture of mortals and demigods. That would complicate things, Alex realised as he blocked the demigod's retaliation blow.

"Who are you?" Alex asked through gritted teeth.

"A servant of the heavens," his enemy replied.

"You're no servant of the gods!" Alex roared as he disarmed his enemy.

Alex brought his sword down, severing an arm, then swept it around and brought it back up, removing the other arm. He was glad demigods had a far smaller conscience as he hacked off his armless enemy's head. Almost any mortal would have been plauged by having to use that brutal maneuver for weeks. Alex just felt a slight pang of pity.

Three more came at him all at once, and after a few seconds Alex was disarmed. He backed away, fumbling with his belt, and managed to pull out his handgun. It was a subcompact Glock that fit easily in his large pocket, with a ten shot internal magazine. He squeezed the trigger, but nothing happened. Then he realized he had left the safety on!

Cursing his own stupidity, Alex flicked off the safety and opened fire. He felt like the world's worst gunman as it took until his third shot to hit even one of the three attackers. He blew out a building's window by mistake and was thankful it didn't set off an alarm. He kept firing, his shots growing more inaccurate It was only by pure luck he hit the second in the neck. The third turned and ran even as Alex fired his final shot.

The sound of sirens met Alex's ears, and fear gripped his heart. Isolated fights he could deal with. Being the target of a nationwide manhunt by a huge, well supplied police force? Not so much.

"We need to get out of here!" Alex shouted.

"Why, I could do this all day?" Leah replied.

"Because the police are coming!" Alex shouted.

"Good point," Leah said, dropping from her triple midair frontflip onto an enemy's face.

"On me!" Alex shouted, darting down a side alley.

The three demigods ran, their hooded enemies behind them, shouting out about some kind of cult. Alex put two and two together and worked out they were cultists. But what cult were they from? Why were they attacking the trio of demigods? How come there were mortals and demigods in the cult? Alex tried to answer them questions in his mind as he sprinted along the thin alley, dodging bins and fire escape staircases. Sirens were still audibly blaring, but they were getting further away. That was good.

Eventually Alex's lungs were virtually empty, his legs were on fire, and he was struggling to draw breath. The cultists weren't slowing down, but Alex was starting to do just that. That was despite the times cars on roads had forced the cultists to wait and Alex and his two friends not to. Where were the cultists getting their gods damned energy from? Alex ignored the questions springing into his mind as he saw an abandoned apartment block.

Alex threw himself at the door and it flew off the hinges. He scrambled up a few floors and ducked into an apartment, Leah and Kyle right on his heels. HE slammed the door closed after them and drew his pistol. He ejected the empty clip still in it from the earlier fight and slipped in a new one. He held it at the ready, facing the door. He wished he had thought of bringing a silencer. He would probably end up alerting the police as to his location all over again.

The door burst open and a cultist charged in. Alex fired three shots, and at least one of them managed to hit. The cultist went down. Alex kept firing as more cultists entered the room, bringing down two and leaving another three limping away, trailing blood. The rest of the cultists retreated, not knowing if Alex had more shots left, or possibly scared beyond the point of thinking. He heard the sirens draw closer, but wasn't sure if he'd be able to escape.

"Come on... I can get us over the roofs," Leah panted.

Alex looked over at her. She was leaning on a wall, breathing heavily and drenched in sweat.

"You sure you can manage it?" Alex asked.

Leah acted like she was offended.

"No, I mean... While you're all worn out and stuff," Alex said.

"Probably," Leah said, "Anyway, it's not like leaving through the front door is an option."

Alex had to agree, the sirens were far too close to retreat through the street level entrance.

"Why not?" Kyle asked.

"I dunno, maybe because the police are looking for us?" Alex said sarcastically.

"Why are you so angry?" Kyle asked.

"Why do you think I'm not in a good mood?" Alex said.

"You two are like an old married couple," Leah said.

"Shut up Leah," the two boys replied simultaneously.

The sirens stopped getting closer, and Alex heard car doors opening.

"Shit," he said.

"We need to go. Now," Leah ordered.

The three demigods made their way up to the roof. Alex heard policemen enter the building just before Leah opened the door to the building's roof. The roof was flat and featureless except for an outdated TV dish or whatever it was called. Alex didn't know; Camp Half Blood didn't use them. Wind whipped Alex's hair around and carried the smell of pollution and McDonalds to his nose. The sky was full of helicopters, private aeroplanes and vapour trials from huge passenger planes. Thankfully, there were no police or news helicopters, but Alex pulled up the hood and did up the zip on his black waterproof jacket anyway. Better safe than sorry when hiding from the law. The neon green logo on the breast pocket and the trim of the same colour contrasted with the mainly black piece of clothing.

"Let's do this," Alex said.

The three demigods ran for the edge of the building and jumped. Leah's powers helped them make the jump, and they were instantly running again on the next rooftop. They ran for about a dozen buildings before they came to a major street, too far to jump.

"Now what?" Kyle asked.

"Hey Leah. Can you get us over this?" Alex asked.

"Time to find out," Leah said.

She jumped and Kyle followed. Alex hesitated for a moment before he too, jumped. He was scared of falling to his death, but trusted Leah to get him across the road more than he was scared of falling. He sailed through the air for about five seconds before landing on the other side of the street, atop an office block. Alex looked back to see the policemen emerging onto the abandoned apartment building's roof. One of them put his finger to his ear, and Alex knew he was calling something that would ensure the demigod's capture: helicopters.

"We need to get inside," Alex said, quickly walking away from the building's edge.

Leah glanced at the policeman.

"Agreed," Leah said, "But the door's locked; we can't get in. Same goes for pretty much every building in New York."

"Not a problem," Kyle said, "It's getting dark."

Alex understood instantly. When it was dark, Kyle could use his demigodly powers. Kyle pointed his index finger at the lock on the door to the building's interior. A beam of starlight shot from said finger and burnt the entire lock away while shining brightly. The police probably thought Kyle had a blowtorch. A mystical force called 'the Mist' distorted mortal's vision of the mythological world, bending their minds to form conclusions that fit the mortal's knowledge of the universe.

Kyle let out an evil cackle.

"Kyle, why are you...?" Alex asked.

"Because I can," Kyle said.

"Pretty good reason," Alex said as he led the way into the office block.

The area around the door was hot and still glowing faintly. Alex unzipped his waterproof jacket as he headed in, and lowered the hood. He made his way down past the empty offices, then crept out into the corridor through the offices that were in use.

"We need to be sneaky here," Alex whispered.

"Never would have guessed," Leah whispered back.

"Shh," Kyle whispered.

The demigods crept along the corridor slowly, darting past the few glass doors. Alex wasn't very good at sneaking, and neither was Kyle. Alex made too much noise and Kyle couldn't move very fast while crouching, so they sent Leah ahead to look for an elevator. Alex whispered a suggestion to her and she swam in midair down the corridor, unaffected by gravity. She came back after a minute and said she had found an elevator to the ground floor. The group almost got there, but a security guard had chosen to stop there for a few minutes.

"Well, shit," Alex moaned.

"Shhh!" Kyle whispered.

"We need a distraction," Leah whispered.

"Kyle, do your thing," Alex whispered.

Kyle splayed his palms and a ball of starlight appeared at the end of the corridor intersecting the one where the demigods were, just around the corner from the elevator. Alex didn't know what the security guard saw, but the man went to investigate. Leah floated the group around the corner and into the elevator.

"What if someone is at the entrance?" Kyle asked.

"Then we use the backdoor," Alex said.

"I mean the elevator entrance," Kyle said.

"Ah," Alex said, "Ummm..."

"Hit them?" Leah suggested.

"Violence; what problems_ can't_ it solve?" Alex said.

"And after that?" Kyle asked.

"After that, we need to find a place to change clothes and get the blood off of us," Alex said.

"We can just use the toilets in this building for that, right?" Kyle said.

"NO!" Leah shouted.

"Calm down," Kyle said.

"What's the problem?" Alex asked.

"Someone might see me changing!" Leah said.

Alex sighed.

"Where else can we go then?" Kyle asked.

"An abandoned building," Leah suggested.

"Abandoned buildings won't have running water," Alex said.

The elevator stopped, and Alex sprang out, ready to hit any witnesses. There were none, so Alex lowered his fist and ducked into a corner.

"How about a gym?" Alex suggested.

"Yeah, that sounds good," Leah said.

"What happened to 'someone might see me changing'?" Kyle asked.

"I'll change in a cubicle," Leah said.

"We'll need to IM Jake," Kyle said.

The trio crept into the female toilets (Leah refused to go into the male toilets). Alex slashed one of the sink's open and water sprayed from a damaged pipe into the air, creating a mist. Kyle tossed a drachma in, and said a prayer to Iris, goddess of rainbows and messenger of the gods and demigods. For one drachma, she could arrange a video call, in effect.

Jake appeared in the mist, lying on his bed watching something on a laptop. He glanced over at the IM and sat up.

"What did you muppets do?" he asked, looking at the bloodstains on the three demigods.

"Long story," Alex said, not wanting to spend too long in a female toilet if he could help it.

"Tell me later, then. What do you need?" Jake asked.

"We need to find a nearby Gym," Leah said, slipping further into Jake's view.

"Why in Hades do you need to find a gym?" Jake asked.

Alex glanced nervously at the door, "Long story. We're at the Gransville office block," Alex said, then turned to Kyle and Leah, "I saw the name on the signs."

"I'm on it," Jake said, turning back to the laptop and bringing up a map.

He scanned it then spoke again, "You need to head about a block south and two west."

The demigods wrapped up the IM then hit the streets again. They were about as empty as it got in New York, and it was dark, so they got to the Gym mostly unnoticed. They made their way in through the back door and snuck into the changing rooms. Alex and Kyle said goodbye to Leah as they went into their gender aligned changing rooms. Alex stripped, showered, dried off and got changed into fresh clothes from his heavy backpack. No one looked at him strangely as he did so. Changing rooms were for that kind of stuff.

The two boys waited outside the changing rooms for Leah. She took a long time, but when she came out Alex was sure it was worth it. Her makeup had been redone, her hair combed, her skin cleaned, and he eyeshadow applied. Alex had to admit, she was kind of gorgeous. Then he mentally slapped himself for thinking like that. Leah was his best friend, he didn't like her that way.

The demigods stayed the night in a hotel, then they made their way out of New York on the bus, not one person suspecting they were the criminals from the earlier fiasco. Alex relaxed in the back of the bus, and closed his eyes as the bus trundled along, leaving the state of New York behind, and hopefully the Cultists too.

**A/N: Thanks for reading. I've got a quick message for my reviewer: your reviews aren't showing up on fanfiction dot net, but I get emails with them in. Please keep reviewing. And if anyone else is reading this, please review too!**


	7. Infiltration

**A/N: I would like to thank my reader (singular) for sticking with this story so far.**

The bus headed south through Pennsylvania first, then turned west and rolled into Indianapolis, Indiana. Alex thought that the cities of America needed names that weren't almost or even exactly the same as the state name. Both cities he had entered on the quest were guilty of that terrible lack of inventive naming.

"So what are we going to do in town?" Kyle asked as the bus entered the city.

"It's a city," Alex said.

"Alex," Kyle said seriously.

"I don't know," Alex admitted, "Leah, you got any ideas?"

Leah blew her blonde hair out of her eyes.

"Nope," she said.

"Great," Alex said sarcastically.

"We could go to one of the art museums," Kyle suggested.

"Meh. You can do that for free on google images," Alex said.

"It's not as good on the computer," Kyle countered.

"Infinitely better value though," Alex said.

"Not if you use an internet cafe," Kyle said.

Alex remebered that until Kyle turned up at Camp Half Blood two years ago he hadn't had a computer, and had to use internet cafes, or his friends' smartphones. Demigods couldn't use phones safely, but back before Kyle knew he was a demigod it was fine.

"True, but Camp has free computer use," Alex said.

"This conversation isn't helping anything," Leah cut in.

"Neither are you," Alex said.

Leah stuck her tongue out at Alex.

"Very mature," Alex laughed.

"Shut it," Leah replied, leaning back in her seat.

"How about we see if there's one of them museums with re-enactments?" Kyle said.

"That's not a bad idea," Alex said.

"You boys and your museums," Leah said.  
"Nothing wrong with wanting to know stuff," Kyle said.

"Preach it, brother," Alex said in a terrible '1900s black priest' voice.

"Oh gods, please never use that accent again," Leah laughed.

"No can do," Alex said in the same accent.

"Please! I'm sorry for whatever I did!" Leah said with a smile.

"Repent in the light'a the lord," Alex said.

Thunder rumbled.

"Can't take a joke, can they?" Alex said, looking into the sky.

"They can take a joke," Kyle said, "If it's written on a piece of paper handed to them."

"WHY!" Leah cried out, "WHAT HAVE I DONE TO DESERVE THIS?"

The other people on the bus were giving the trio of demigods odd looks, so Alex put a finger to his lips and shushed Leah. She gave him a brief glare but quitened down anyway. Just then the bus stopped; the demigods got off; a clock tower or noisy alarm clock rang twelve times; and a dozen people got onto the bus.

"So are we going to go to a re-enactment museum?" Kyle asked.

Alex was about to say yes when he noticed three figures in brown hoodies with poorly concealed weapons slip into an alley. Cultists.

"No, we're going to follow the cultists," Alex said.

"I don't see any cultists," Kyle said.

"I did. Follow me," Alex ordered.

The trio made their way into the alley and then crouched behind bins. The cultists turned a corner, and the demigods moved up. Leah floated up to a fire escape and followed from above while the two male demigods stuck to the ground. The cultists quickly strode down the alley and back onto a main road.

After a few minutes of following the cultists, the demigods stopped and gathered together as their prey headed into a dilapidated but subtle office block. Alex knew the front door would most likely be guarded, so he led his friends around the building until they found the back door.

Leah drew a smal pocket knife she had packed and knelt down by the lock. She slipped the pocket knife in a wriggled it around for a while, trying to pick the lock. Eventually she got frustrated and increased the door's acceleration to rip it from it's hinges.

"Oops," she sniggered.

"Oh, sure it was accidental," Alex said.

"Got me there," Leah chuckled, slipping into the building.

Alex and Kyle followed, keeping low and ready to run if needed. Leah, on the other hand, forged recklessly ahead. She stopped as she reached a set of double doors. She peeked through the gap between the two doors.

"Some kind of canteen," she whispered.

"Lemme see," Alex whispered back, moving to the door and peeking through.

Just over half a dozen tables were spread across the room, all of them cricular and with about six chairs at each. A long serving bar was at the far side of the room, with menus printed in large fonts upon blackboards behind the wall. Alex tried to decipher them, got frustrated, and almost headbutted the wall in frustration. He let out a breath and got back to examining the room.

Then a voice came from around the corner, and a reply was given by another voice.

"Shit," Alex said, ducking into a corner.

Kyle darted back into another corrider, and Leah floated up until she was lying in the air above eyesight. Alex huddled even further into the corner as the two cultists walked past. One had a club tied to his side and the other had an AK74 on a strap. Alex was puzzled by the vast differences in gear, even while hiding in a dusty, smelly corner of a poorly lit corridor.

The light was only that of the still rising sun. The demigods had slept in New York, in a hotel, to be specific, then got the bus into Indianapolis as soon as the first driver began his shift. It was only around six in the morning. Alex guessed the people he had seen getting onto the bus earlier had first shifts in their jobs.

The two cultists passed and Leah floated back down to the floor. Kyle came back to the canteen door from the corridor, and Alex stepped out of the corner.

"That was close," Kyle whispered.

"Too close," Alex agreed.

"What now?" Kyle asked, "I can search the canteen?"

Alex fought to stop himself from facepalming. Kyle was obsessed with food, and Alex doubted he'd be able to resist the food in the canteen if he searched it.

"No point," Alex whispered, "We need to try and find any clues."

"Like Scooby Doo," Leah teasingly whispered.

"Yes, like Scooby frigging Doo," Alex sighed.

"What about that series with just Shaggy and Scooby?" Kyle asked.

"Isn't there more important matters at the moment?" Alex whispered, ending the conversation.

"Yes," Kyle whispered.

The three demigods decided to search the rest of the bottom floor, and did so quickly, darting from corner to corner rather than taking the search at a slow crouch walk. After about ten minutes they had covered the entire ground floor; mostly empty rooms, which Alex found dissapointing.

"Next floor?" Alex asked.

"Obviously," Leah whispered, rolling her eyes.

The demigods searched each floor up to the sixth without finding anything but the oocasional bunkroom, lounge or computer suite. However, this changed when they went to go to the seventh floor, which was the second to last.

"There's two guard at the top of them stairs," Kyle whispered as the demigods scouted out the stairwell.

"Must be something important, then," Leah confidently whispered.

"Or it's a trick," Alex cautioned, "We don't want to asume anything."

"A trick? These dumbasses couldn't trick a retarded dog!" Leah whispered.

She thrusted her palm towards the two guards and they flew forwards. There was a sickening crunch as their heads collided with the inner wall of the building. Their bodies fell, slowing into a quiet landing at the last moment.

Alex glanced nervously around.

"Very subtle," he whispered, "And completely silent!"

"It was quiet enough," Leah replied.

"Oh, sure it was quiet enough," Alex whispered sarcastically, "But when fifty come charging through the door, don't blame me."

"Close your freaking mouth!" Leah snapped angrily.

"Shut up you two," Kyle whispered.

"Say please," Alex whispered, crouch walking towards the bottom of the staircase.

"No," Kyle replied, following Alex.

"Fair enough," Alex admitted, starting to sneak up the staircase.

Alex reached the door and peeked through the keyhole. A cultist strolled past in the corridor, ignoring the door completely.

"Oh no, fifty cultists are coming through the door and attacking us," Leah commented sarcastically behind Alex.

The cultist in the corridor glanced over; looked at the door as attentively as an eagle looking at it's prey for a few long, agonizing moments; then shrugged and continued to walk down the corridor.

"They might have done, you can never be too careful," Alex breathed into Leah's ear.

"You need to man up and learn to take some risks," Leah whispered back.

"You need to learn when we need to be fucking sneaky!" Alex spat.

Kyle slapped both of the demigods in the back of the head and told them to save the argument for their 'alone time'. They both glared at him, but Alex was secretly thankful the argument had been broken up. He didn't really want to attract enemies by having a heated argument. That, and he didn't really want to get on Leah's bad side.

The three demigods almost instantly found a fully stocked armoury. Alex slipped through the door and examined the contents: kevlar vests; celestial bronze chestplates, helmets and shields; rifles, submachineguns, carbines and handguns, complete with overly packed boxes of ammo; celestial bronze blades and mauls of every kind; handgrenades and underslung grenade launchers; and, looming ominously over the demigod, a trio of towering, highly dangerous missiles.

"That's a lot of weapons," Kyle whispered as he slipped through the ajar door.

Alex nodded in reply, "A scary amount."

"Aww, is little baby Alex scared?" Leah taunted as she entered the room right behind Kyle.

Alex clenched his fists and took a deep, calming breath.

"You know a lot about being a baby, don't you," Alex whispered as he opened his fists, "And also a Hades of a lot about being a petty bitch."

Alex instantly regretted his words. Thankfully, he was saved from an argument by Kyle.

"Alex is right, Leah. Stop being a bitch," Kyle whispered.

Leah glared at both of the boys, but kept her mouth shut like it had been sewn that way with titanium threads.

The rest of the search of the building went in relative silence. The demigods stole a few folders of documents from a room Alex assumed was some kind of control room, then they found some poison in a second armoury and Alex had the idea of sneaking some of it into the food stores of the cult. They searched for five minutes before finding the food stores in the relatively disorganized building, but when they did they put small drops of poison into all of the steak, salmon, carrots, bread and coca-cola, a complete random mix designed to throw the guesses on what is and isn't safe off once the cultists discovered the poisoning._ If_ they did.

After that the demigods made their way to the fire escape and opened the door. The air from outside was fresh and the sun was shining, warming Alex up with it's rays of light. Alex, Kyle and Leah rushed down the metal staircase and away from the building to what they considered a safe distance, should their intrusion be discovered.

"What's your problem with me?" Alex asked Leah.

"My problem with you? My problem with you is that you're an annoying little git with no guts!" Leah snapped.

"You aren't exactly the least annoying person ever, you bi-" Alex started, but he was interrupted by a slap to the face.

Alex growled furiously and slammed his palms into Leah, sending her stumbling backwards, barely staying upright. She sprang forward and kicked Alex in between his legs. Alex cried out in pain and Kyle slid in between the two fighting demigods, breaking up the brawl. Alex stormed off and Leah glared at him as he went.

Alex weaved his way randomly through the city until he found an empty alley, and then he slumped onto the ground next to a dumpster and put his head in his hands. He cursed himself for messing everything up with his best friend, for being too selfish and impulsive to deal with it peacefully, and for being too much of a failure to get anything right. Then he cried, unable to hold in his emotions.

**A/N: So, I tried to add is some conflict and add a few more flaws to the characters, and I hope I did a good job. Please review, and if you don't, I know where you live ;-) So please, please review.**


	8. Author's Note

Sorry for not updating recently, I've been away for a week. There will be a new chapter soon, I promise.


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